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| Classical Masterpieces |  | Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto for Two Trumpets and String Orchestra in C Major, RV 537
Beginning in 1703 and intermittently for many decades, Antonio Vivaldi served as music factotum at the Pio Hospedale della Pietá in Venice, an institution devoted to the care and education of abandoned, orphaned and indigent girls, with a special emphasis on musical training (no Dickensian work house or Dotheboys Hall this). In addition to his duties as virtuoso violinist, violin teacher, orchestra director and instrument purchaser, Vivaldi served as resident composer, producing hundreds of works for various instruments and ensembles, including nearly 450 concerti, usually at a rate of more than two per month. The resident girls were trained in both string and wind instruments, including the organ, and as part of their training Vivaldi composed concertos for every instrument and instrument combination. Many of them were apparently written with specific girl soloists in mind.
Concertos for two trumpets were quite popular during the Baroque.The Republic of Venice had long tradition of ceremonial music for brass instruments, especially the trumpet. It might come as a surprise, therefore, that Vivaldi wrote only one concerto for this instrument. But one must bear in mind that the instrument in Vivaldi’s time was technically primitive compared to today’s instrument, having no valves or keys to permit the full range of chromatic notes. The valve trumpet came into use only well into the nineteenth century. Moreover, as a military instrument, the trumpet was totally unsuitable for the girls at the Pietá for whom Vivaldi wrote most of his concerti.
As with most of Vivaldi’s concertos, we do not know when or for what purpose the Concerto in C Major for Two Trumpets was written, although its bright character allows us to imagine some festive occasion – a trumpet work without a fanfare motive is just about unimaginable.  The Concerto was discovered in the late 1920s as part of a large collection of hitherto unknown Vivaldi concertos. It follows the composer’s usual three movement fast-slow-fast format. As was usual with the brass concerti at the time, the soloists are silent during the short slow movement, as if giving the soloists a short breather. The character of this movement is also entirely transitional without real themes or motives. it sets up harmonic tension that leads directly into the final movement and might have been extended with some elaborate improvisation by the haripsichordist. In the fast movements the two trumpets introduce a series of themes in which they alternately chase each other in imitative counterpoint or play together in parallel thirds and sixths.
During the 250 years following Vivaldi, the trumpet as a solo instrument nearly vanished off composers’ radar. Over the last few decades, however, the trumpet has gained new life in the concert hall, spurred by such virtuoso promoters as Maurice André and Wynton Marsalis. |
| | |  | | | | Franz Joseph Haydn | | | 1732-1809 | | |
Franz Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 88 in G Major
Franz Joseph Haydn had one of the most innovative and creative musical minds of his time. It is to Haydn that we owe the development of the string quartet into a mature and enduring form, and we can also credit him with vastly expanding the emotional range and harmonic vocabulary of the classical symphony. He was constantly seeking ways to counter the expectations of his audience and enliven standard musical forms with twists and surprises.
His long life spanned one of the great upheavals in the economics of the musical profession. It marked the demise of the aristocratic “ownership” of music and musicians and the rise of the middle class as patron, supporter and chief consumer of the arts. No one bridged this transition better than Haydn, who made the transition from darling of the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy to that of London's merchants – without offending either.
During the mid 1760s through the 70s, Haydn’s music underwent a profound transformation. His symphonies ceased to be mere light-hearted entertainment and became more intense and dramatic. By the 1780s, with his fame spreading, he started publishing his music independently from his patron, Prince Esterházy. In 1786 he wrote six symphonies (Nos. 81-87) for a fashionable Paris concert organization; these were a giant leap forward both technically and emotionally.
Haydn composed his Symphonies No. 88 and 89 in 1787 for a colleague, the violinist and merchant Johann Peter Tost. Aware of the value of Haydn’s name, Tost used them to introduce himself to the musical circles in Paris. Full of instrumental and musical innovations, No. 88 quickly became one of Haydn’s most beloved symphonies.
The solemn introduction precedes what appears to be the movement’s sole theme. based on a little four-note motive. However, one should always expect the unexpected with Haydn; at the very end of the exposition, he sneaks in a new melody. Although the custom at the time was to compose sonata allegro movements with at least two themes, Haydn was always tweaking the system, perhaps as a way of keeping his creativity fresh and pleasing his musical patron. The development becomes increasingly dramatic in mood, and the recapitulation is a re-orchestration of the original material, including a charming flute solo.
In the second movement, Largo, Haydn pulls another surprise. The principal theme, a gentle dialogue between the upper woodwinds and strings, is suddenly joined by a blast of trumpets and timpani, probably the first time these instruments had been used in the slow movement of a symphony. The middle section includes a new theme, this time in the manner of the loud interruption.
One of the ways of distinguishing Mozart from Haydn is that Mozart’s minuets are clearly minuets with the aristocracy in mind, while Haydn’s suggest stomping peasant dances. This Menuetto has even been compared to one of Peter Breugel’s peasant feast scenes. The sustained notes of the basses in the trio remind us of bagpipe drones, while the horn section solo evokes the image of a hunt.
The Allegro finale is a spirited rondo. In the second episode, Haydn plays the upper strings against the lower in a fortissimo canon, the voices a scant half measure apart.
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| | |  | | | | Ludwig van Beethoven | | | 1770-1827 | | |
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 4 in B flat Major, Op. 60
The year 1806 was extremely productive for Beethoven. Early that year the composer worked on revising his opera Fidelio, which had failed miserably the year before. He also embarked on an astonishing number of masterpieces: the three Razumovsky String Quartets, the Appassionata Sonata, the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, the Violin Concerto and the Fourth Piano Concerto.
Beethoven had started first on the stormy Fifth Symphony, sketches for which survive from as early as 1804, but put it aside to work on the Fourth, which he finished in early 1807. While the two symphonies are vastly different in mood, one of the interesting connections between them is the descending interlocking thirds that open both works, part of a tense and somber slow introduction in the Fourth, that morphs into a nervous percussiveness in the famous opening of the Fifth. The Fourth Symphony was premiered in March at a private all-Beethoven concert that also included the premieres of the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Coriolan Overture, netting the ever money-conscious composer a tidy sum.
While the Symphony’s shape is traditionally classical, looking back to Haydn, the music is unmistakably Beethoven. The extremely slow introduction of 38 measures baffled his contemporaries: “Every quarter of an hour we hear three or four notes. It is exciting!” commented composer and conductor Carl Maria von Weber sarcastically. The contrasting Allegro is one of Beethoven’s most buoyant movements, with the music cascading like a rushing waterfall. There is a tremendous buildup of tension towards the return to the original theme, starting with a pianissimo that gradually rises to a double forte, a passage that amazed even such musical iconoclasts as Hector Berlioz.
The symphony’s exuberance is sustained throughout, the only contrast being the second movement. This Adagio, featuring timpani and clarinets, begins with an elegant cantabile theme set to an accompaniment of quiet dotted rhythm in the strings, but the sudden outburst of hammered cadence conjures echoes of Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony. The timpani, now carrying the little rhythmic motive, subside into the background but the little motive remains, like an underlying heartbeat, the unifying force behind an outpouring of new melodies. After a passionate middle sectionwith a new rhythmic motive sustaining it, featuring a solo clarinet, Beethoven returns to a varied version of the opening section in the classic ternary ABA’ form of most slow movements of the period.
The Scherzo retains the theme of contrasting dynamics by setting the upper winds and violins against the full orchestra and timpani. In a mildly unusual move for the time, Beethoven repeats the Trio, a lilting oboe solo. He finishes up with a much abbreviated additional repeat of the Scherzo.
The Finale is unusual in that it is a classic sonata form – but on speed. Like the Adagio, there is a constant rhythmic pulse in the background, here a driving perpetuum mobile. In actuality, the entire Symphony abounds in exclamation points, created in many cases by Beethoven’s extensive use of the timpani to contrast with quiet or legato passages. There's even a surprise in the coda. With Beethoven, as with his mentor, Haydn, one should always expect the unexpected.
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| | | | Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2009 |
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March 2010
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